2002

The Voice: Summer 2002

Sanctified common sense

By Dr. Carl E. Zylstra

Excuse me, but doesnt anyone teach common sense these days? The alum who
asked me that question is less than ten years past her graduation from Dordt College. She is in a position to hire people from a variety of different colleges and universities. And increasingly, she said, her disillusionment with major
university graduates is growing. Doesnt anyone teach common sense? was her major complaint.

Thats not an unusual complaint either. A major concern of human resources professionals
around the country is that the skills people bring to their first job
dont carry them through to successive promotions. Typically, people leave their educational institutions
knowing some entry level skills but lacking the communication, judgment, and strategic abilities
that tend to get them promoted and make them valuable to their employers
long term. In short, they lack common sense.

All that started me thinking. Do we really teach common sense at Dordt
College? I often hear from employers that Dordt College grads are enthusiastic, committed,
ready to contribute, and eager to keep on learning. What makes the difference?
Why are graduates from colleges like Dordt able to approach their tasks with
what, for want of a better term, could be called common sense?

There are several reasons, I think. One is that virtually all of our
unmarried students live on campus. In many cases they come in as freshmen
who have never had to share a room. Suddenly they have to share
a bedroom with a roommate, a bathroom with forty others, and a dining
hall with 600. Pretty clearly, theyre either going to learn some common sense
quickly or theyre going to be in trouble.

And, if they dont learn it then, they certainly will learn what it
means when later they team up with four to six other people to
live in a campus apartment. Cooking together, cleaning together, and sharing living space
together will demand a rapid learning curve in just plain getting along and
working together.

Similarly, over 800 of our students have on-campus jobs. They soon learn what
it means, in one way or another, to serve the rest of the
campus community. Whether washing dishes, mowing lawns, or calling next years prospective freshmen,
students find that in order to pay for their time at Dordt College,
they need to do more than write a check. They have to put
themselves personally on the line where the rest of the campus will hold
them responsible.

Then too, our extensive student residence advisor system builds in requirements for mutual
accountability. To a far greater extent than at most colleges, Dordt College relies
on a student residence life staff in which students are charged with holding
each other accountable for adhering to campus community standards. Students soon learn that
failing to meet standards is not a matter of outsmarting a professional supervisor.
Its a matter of letting down your colleagues and other members of your
team.

And speaking of teams, the high number of students involved in co-curricular activities
also provides experience in what it takes to accomplish shared teamwork. Its not
just that in a college of Dordts size there are so many opportunities
for students to experience multiple roles in music, theater, and athletics as well
as their own academic area. Its also that, with 800 students staying on
campus each weekend, theres a lot of opportunity to join a lacrosse club,
a strategy game club, or a hockey club. Or at least to join
the 750 other students who play intramural sports throughout the year.

Still, I like to think theres something more. My mother used to tell
me to use my sanctified common sense. After all, we arent just teaching
people to get along. Were trying to educate Christian young people with a
sensitivity to the Holy Spirits leading in applying biblical standards to our life
together. Were trying to teach covenant living that includes those principles of communication
and shared vision that can apply in any civic or employment setting as
well.

At Dordt College we talk about developing biblical insight. We want people to
see how the world works from the inside out and to discover how
they themselves can fit within it and serve Christs kingdom work of renewing
that world where its gone off the track. Its the heart of the
education in our classrooms, and its the foundation of the education that takes
place 24/7 in the classroom of our comprehensive campus life.

I know that no college is perfect and no graduate represents a college
perfectly. But I trust that the alum who asked me the question that
prompted these reflections will find that, should she ever interview one of our
graduates, she will find that, by Gods grace, at least Dordt College still
teaches truly sanctified common sense.